Accelerated Daily Study Plan — Interview-Ready in 14 Days

This plan: Apply from Day 1. Interview-ready by Day 10. Fully sharp by Day 14. Every day: What to learn, which FREE resource, exact problems to solve, how long it takes.

How This Plan Works

flowchart TD
    A["🚀 <b>PHASE 1: SPRINT</b> · Days 1–10 → INTERVIEW-READY<br/>Cover everything that 80% of interviews actually test.<br/>Apply to jobs every single day in parallel."]
    B["🔪 <b>PHASE 2: SHARPEN</b> · Days 11–14 → FULLY SHARP<br/>Fill gaps, mock interviews, advanced topics.<br/>By now you likely have interviews scheduled."]
    C["🔄 <b>AFTER DAY 14: MAINTENANCE</b> → STAY SHARP<br/>2 hrs/day: solve problems + prep for specific interviews."]
    A --> B --> C

Each day has 3 blocks (~4-5 hrs total):

Rules:

1. Don’t skip coding block — do it even when tired
2. If stuck on a problem for 20 min → read the solution, understand it, re-solve from scratch
3. Apply to jobs EVERY SINGLE DAY. This is non-negotiable. Pipeline > perfection.
4. No rest days in Phase 1. You rest after you have offers.

Free Resources Master List

Bookmark these. Everything below links to these:

Coding

System Design

Python & Backend

Databases

Distributed Systems

AWS & Infrastructure

Behavioral

Rust (if needed)

PHASE 1: SPRINT — Days 1-10 (Interview-Ready)

After these 10 days you can confidently walk into any backend SDE interview at a startup. You’ll have covered: 12 coding patterns, system design, backend/API, databases, Python, behavioral, and power keywords.

Day 1 — Power Keywords + Behavioral + Arrays & Hashing

Today you become dangerous in interviews AND start applying.

Block 1: Interview Skills (1.5 hr)

Read: 11-interview-power-keywords.md (30 min)

• Highlight the top 20 keywords
• Practice saying 3 power sentences out loud

Read: 09-behavioral-and-soft-skills.md (45 min)

• Focus on the 5 pre-built STAR stories from your experience
• Practice your 90-second “tell me about yourself” out loud 3 times

Watch: STAR Method Interview — Dan Croitor — pick any 1 video (15 min)

Block 2: Coding (1 hr)

Pattern: Arrays & Hashing Watch: NeetCode — Arrays & Hashing playlist — watch “Contains Duplicate” + “Two Sum” explanations (20 min)

Solve on LeetCode:

• 217. Contains Duplicate (Easy) — 10 min
• 1. Two Sum (Easy) — 15 min
• 242. Valid Anagram (Easy) — 15 min

Key takeaway: Hash maps give O(1) lookup — use dict and set aggressively.

Block 3: Apply (30 min)

• Set up LinkedIn “Open to Work” (recruiters only)
• Apply to 3-5 jobs (see guide-emergency-job-search-plan for full strategy)

Day 2 — Arrays & Hashing (continued) + Backend & API Design

Block 1: Coding (1.5 hr)

Pattern: Arrays & Hashing (continued) Watch: NeetCode — “Group Anagrams” + “Top K Frequent Elements” explanations (20 min)

Solve:

• 49. Group Anagrams (Medium) — 20 min
• 347. Top K Frequent Elements (Medium) — 20 min
• 238. Product of Array Except Self (Medium) — 20 min
• 128. Longest Consecutive Sequence (Medium) — 20 min

Tip: Use collections.Counter and collections.defaultdict — interviewers love seeing Pythonic code.

Block 2: Concepts (1.5 hr)

Read: 05-backend-and-api-design.md — REST design, HTTP methods, status codes, auth, caching, rate limiting

Watch:

• ByteByteGo — REST API Design — search “REST API” (10 min)
• ByteByteGo — Rate Limiting — search “rate limiting” (10 min)
• ByteByteGo — API Gateway — search “API gateway” (10 min)

Block 3: Apply (30 min)

• Apply to 3-5 jobs

Day 3 — Two Pointers + Sliding Window + Databases (Your Strength)

Two patterns today — both are short and closely related.

Block 1: Coding (1.5 hr)

Patterns: Two Pointers + Sliding Window Watch: NeetCode — “Valid Palindrome” + “3Sum” + “Longest Substring Without Repeating” (20 min)

Solve:

• 125. Valid Palindrome (Easy) — 10 min
• 15. 3Sum (Medium) — 20 min
• 11. Container With Most Water (Medium) — 15 min
• 121. Best Time to Buy and Sell Stock (Easy) — 10 min
• 3. Longest Substring Without Repeating Characters (Medium) — 15 min

Key takeaways:

• Sorted array → think two pointers from both ends
• Subarray/substring with condition → sliding window: left pointer + for right in range(n)

Block 2: Concepts (2 hr)

Read: 04-databases-and-sql.md — indexing, EXPLAIN, query optimization, MVCC sections

This is YOUR strongest topic. Focus on explaining clearly:

• B-tree vs hash indexes — when to use which
• Composite indexes and column order matters
• EXPLAIN ANALYZE output — what to look for
• Transaction isolation levels (Read Committed, Repeatable Read, Serializable)

Free read: https://use-the-index-luke.com — read chapters 1-3 (30 min) Practice: https://pgexercises.com — do 5 basic + 5 join exercises (30 min)

Block 3: Apply + Behavioral (30 min)

• Apply to 3 jobs
• Practice STAR story out loud: “PostgreSQL optimization from minutes to milliseconds”

Day 4 — Stack + Binary Search + Python Deep Dive

Two more patterns — you’re now at 6 patterns in 4 days.

Block 1: Coding (1.5 hr)

Patterns: Stack + Binary Search Watch: NeetCode — “Valid Parentheses” + “Daily Temperatures” + “Koko Eating Bananas” (20 min)

Solve:

• 20. Valid Parentheses (Easy) — 10 min
• 155. Min Stack (Medium) — 15 min
• 739. Daily Temperatures (Medium) — 15 min
• 704. Binary Search (Easy) — 5 min
• 875. Koko Eating Bananas (Medium) — 15 min
• 33. Search in Rotated Sorted Array (Medium) — 15 min

Key takeaways:

• Monotonic stack = “next greater/smaller element” problems
• “Binary search on answer” = search space is monotonic, binary search for the optimal value

Block 2: Concepts (1.5 hr)

Read: 03-python-deep-dive.md — GIL, async/await, generators, decorators, FastAPI internals

Watch:

• mCoding — Python’s GIL — search “GIL” (15 min)
• ArjanCodes — async/await in Python — search “async” (15 min)

Key things to be able to explain:

• What is the GIL and why does it exist?
• async/await vs threads vs multiprocessing — when to use which
• How FastAPI handles concurrent requests despite the GIL
• Pydantic validation, dependency injection in FastAPI

Free read: https://www.interviewbit.com/fastapi-interview-questions-answers/ — top Q&A (20 min)

Block 3: Apply + Behavioral (30 min)

• Apply to 3-5 jobs
• Practice STAR story: “Designing async workflows with queues and workers”

Day 5 — Linked List + Trees + System Design Fundamentals

Trees are the #1 most tested data structure. Master this day.

Block 1: Coding (1.5 hr)

Patterns: Linked List + Trees intro Watch: NeetCode — “Reverse Linked List” + “Invert Binary Tree” + “Max Depth” (20 min)

Solve:

• 206. Reverse Linked List (Easy) — 10 min
• 21. Merge Two Sorted Lists (Easy) — 10 min
• 141. Linked List Cycle (Easy) — 10 min
• 226. Invert Binary Tree (Easy) — 5 min
• 104. Maximum Depth of Binary Tree (Easy) — 5 min
• 98. Validate Binary Search Tree (Medium) — 15 min
• 102. Binary Tree Level Order Traversal (Medium) — 15 min

Key takeaway: Most tree problems are DFS. Think: “Can I solve this with a recursive function that visits left and right?”

Block 2: Concepts (2 hr)

Read: 02-system-design.md — RESHADED framework, load balancing, caching, database scaling

Watch (all free on YouTube):

• ByteByteGo — System Design Interview Framework — search “system design interview” (12 min)
• ByteByteGo — Load Balancing — search “load balancer” (10 min)
• ByteByteGo — Caching Strategies — search “caching” (10 min)
• ByteByteGo — Database Sharding — search “sharding” (10 min)

Free read: https://github.com/donnemartin/system-design-primer — read “System design topics: start here” section

Block 3: Apply (30 min)

• Apply to 3-5 jobs

Day 6 — Trees (advanced) + Heap + System Design Messaging & Queues

Block 1: Coding (1.5 hr)

Patterns: Trees (continued) + Heap Watch: NeetCode — “LCA”, “Kth Smallest in BST”, “K Closest Points” (20 min)

Solve:

• 235. Lowest Common Ancestor of BST (Medium) — 15 min
• 230. Kth Smallest Element in BST (Medium) — 15 min
• 105. Construct BT from Preorder and Inorder (Medium) — 20 min
• 973. K Closest Points to Origin (Medium) — 15 min
• 621. Task Scheduler (Medium) — 20 min

Key takeaway: Python heapq is min-heap only. For max-heap, push -val and negate when popping.

Block 2: Concepts (1.5 hr)

Read: 02-system-design.md — message queues, event-driven architecture, async processing

Watch:

• ByteByteGo — Message Queues — search “message queue” (10 min)
• ByteByteGo — SQL vs NoSQL — search “SQL vs NoSQL” (10 min)
• ByteByteGo — Kafka — search “kafka” (10 min)

Connect to YOUR experience: You built async workflows with RabbitMQ at Intensel. Practice explaining:

• Why you chose queues over synchronous processing
• How you handled retries and dead letter queues
• How the system scaled under load

Block 3: Apply + Behavioral (30 min)

• Apply to 3-5 jobs
• Practice STAR story: “Handling 2.3 billion records in PostGIS”

Day 7 — Graphs + Distributed Systems Basics

Block 1: Coding (1.5 hr)

Pattern: Graphs — BFS/DFS + Topological Sort Watch: NeetCode — “Number of Islands” + “Course Schedule” (20 min)

Solve:

• 200. Number of Islands (Medium) — 15 min
• 133. Clone Graph (Medium) — 15 min
• 994. Rotting Oranges (Medium) — 15 min
• 207. Course Schedule (Medium) — 15 min
• 210. Course Schedule II (Medium) — 15 min

Key takeaway: Grid problems = graph problems. Each cell is a node, 4-directional neighbors are edges. BFS for shortest path, DFS for exploration. Topological sort for “ordering with dependencies.”

Block 2: Concepts (1.5 hr)

Read: 06-distributed-systems.md — CAP theorem, consistency models, replication, partitioning

Watch:

• ByteByteGo — CAP Theorem — search “CAP theorem” (10 min)
• ByteByteGo — Consistent Hashing — search “consistent hashing” (10 min)
• ByteByteGo — Microservices vs Monolith — search “microservices” (10 min)

Block 3: Apply + Behavioral (30 min)

• Apply to 3-5 jobs
• Practice STAR story: “Building the Map Tile Service for 5.3TB of data”

Day 8 — Backtracking + DP (1D) + AWS & Infrastructure

Two patterns today. DP sounds scary but you already understand it — it’s just caching/memoization.

Block 1: Coding (1.5 hr)

Patterns: Backtracking + Dynamic Programming (1D) Watch: NeetCode — “Subsets” + “Climbing Stairs” + “Coin Change” (25 min)

Solve:

• 78. Subsets (Medium) — 15 min
• 46. Permutations (Medium) — 10 min
• 39. Combination Sum (Medium) — 15 min
• 70. Climbing Stairs (Easy) — 5 min
• 198. House Robber (Medium) — 10 min
• 322. Coin Change (Medium) — 15 min

Key takeaways:

• Backtracking = DFS + “choose → explore → unchoose”
• DP = recursion + memoization. Use @lru_cache first, convert to bottom-up later if needed.

Block 2: Concepts (1.5 hr)

Read: 07-aws-and-infrastructure.md — EC2, S3, RDS, VPC, Docker, CI/CD, monitoring

Watch:

• freeCodeCamp — AWS Cloud Practitioner — watch first 30 min for core services overview
• ByteByteGo — CI/CD Pipeline — search “CI CD” (10 min)

Free read: https://github.com/Devinterview-io/aws-interview-questions — skim top 30 questions (20 min)

Block 3: Apply (30 min)

• Apply to 3-5 jobs

Day 9 — DP (2D) + Intervals + Greedy + System Design Practice

Last new coding patterns. By end of today, you’ve covered ALL 12 critical patterns.

Block 1: Coding (1.5 hr)

Patterns: DP (advanced), Intervals, Greedy Watch: NeetCode — “LIS” + “Merge Intervals” + “Jump Game” (20 min)

Solve:

• 300. Longest Increasing Subsequence (Medium) — 15 min
• 139. Word Break (Medium) — 15 min
• 56. Merge Intervals (Medium) — 10 min
• 435. Non-overlapping Intervals (Medium) — 10 min
• 55. Jump Game (Medium) — 10 min

Block 2: System Design Practice (1.5 hr)

Design problem: Design a URL Shortener (like bit.ly)

Approach:

1. Set a 35-minute timer
2. Use the RESHADED framework from 02-system-design.md
3. Write your answer on paper or in a new file
4. Compare with: https://github.com/donnemartin/system-design-primer — search “URL shortener”

Watch after attempting: Gaurav Sen — URL Shortener System Design — search “URL shortener” (20 min)

Block 3: Apply + Behavioral (30 min)

• Apply to 3-5 jobs
• Practice STAR story: “Implementing deployment automation and monitoring”

Day 10 — High-Frequency Problems + Design YOUR System + Mini Mock

YOU ARE NOW INTERVIEW-READY. Today is about sharpening the blade.

Block 1: Coding (1.5 hr)

Must-solve classics — these are asked disproportionately often:

Watch: NeetCode — “LRU Cache” + “Find Median from Data Stream” (20 min)

Solve:

• 146. LRU Cache (Medium) — 30 min
• 295. Find Median from Data Stream (Hard) — 25 min
• 76. Minimum Window Substring (Hard) — 25 min

These three problems are asked at a disproportionately high rate. Master them.

Block 2: System Design Practice (1.5 hr)

Design problem: Design the backend for YOUR climate risk platform

This is a meta-exercise — you literally built this. Practice explaining it in 35 minutes using system design vocabulary:

• Requirements gathering
• API design
• Database schema (PostGIS, multi-terabyte)
• Data pipeline architecture (Dask, RabbitMQ)
• Caching strategy (Redis)
• Scaling approach

This will be your STRONGEST system design answer because you actually built it.

Block 3: Mini Mock (1 hr)

Do a self-mock or ask a friend:

• “Tell me about yourself” (90 sec, timed)
• Solve 1 random Medium from NeetCode 150 (25 min, no hints)
• Explain one system you’ve built (10 min)
• 3 behavioral questions from 09-behavioral-and-soft-skills.md

flowchart TD
    A["✅ <b>YOU ARE NOW INTERVIEW-READY</b><br/><br/>After Day 10 you have covered:<br/>· 12 coding patterns + 50+ LeetCode problems<br/>· System design fundamentals + 2 practice designs<br/>· Backend/API design, databases, Python internals<br/>· Distributed systems basics, AWS, infrastructure<br/>· Behavioral stories + power keywords<br/>· 30–50+ job applications sent<br/><br/><i>If you have interviews coming, you're ready. Go crush them.<br/>Phase 2 below makes you even sharper if you have time.</i>"]

PHASE 2: SHARPEN — Days 11-14 (Extra Edge)

Only do this if you have time before interviews. If an interview is tomorrow, skip to the Pre-Interview Checklist in guide-emergency-job-search-plan.

Day 11 — Weak Pattern Review + System Design Practice #3

Block 1: Coding (1.5 hr)

Go back to your weakest pattern. Re-solve 4 problems from that pattern.

If not sure which is weakest, try these COLD (no hints, 25 min timer each):

• 53. Maximum Subarray (Medium)
• 417. Pacific Atlantic Water Flow (Medium)
• 91. Decode Ways (Medium)
• 62. Unique Paths (Medium)

Block 2: System Design Practice (1.5 hr)

Design problem: Design a Notification Service (push, email, SMS)

Think about: queue-based delivery, retry logic, user preferences, rate limiting, template rendering.

Watch after: Search ByteByteGo “notification system” (12 min)

Connect to YOUR experience: You built async job processing with RabbitMQ. This is the same pattern.

Block 3: Apply (30 min)

• Apply to 3-5 jobs + follow up on previous applications (anyone ghosting you?)

Day 12 — Trie + Advanced Problems + Startup-Specific Prep

Block 1: Coding (1.5 hr)

Solve:

• 208. Implement Trie (Medium) — 20 min
• 79. Word Search (Medium) — 20 min
• 19. Remove Nth Node From End of List (Medium) — 15 min
• 143. Reorder List (Medium) — 20 min

Block 2: Startup Prep (1.5 hr)

Read: 10-startup-specific-prep.md — evaluation framework, equity/comp, negotiation

Prepare answers for:

• “Why startups over big companies?”
• “How do you prioritize when everything is urgent?”
• “Tell me about a time you wore multiple hats”
• “Why are you leaving after 5 years?” (see guide-emergency-job-search-plan for prepared answers)

Block 3: Apply (30 min)

• Apply to 3-5 jobs

Day 13 — Mock Interview Day

Full Mock (3 hr)

Option A: Pramp (free) — Do 2 sessions: 1 coding + 1 system design

Option B: With a friend — Give them this script:

Round 1 — Coding (30 min): 
  Give any Medium from: LRU Cache, Course Schedule, 3Sum, Coin Change

Round 2 — System Design (30 min): 
  "Design a data pipeline that ingests terabytes of climate data 
  and serves queries with sub-second latency"

Round 3 — Behavioral (20 min): 
  - "Tell me about yourself" (90 sec)
  - "Tell me about a time you optimized something significantly"
  - "Why are you looking to leave your current role?"
  - "What's the hardest bug you've ever debugged?"

After the mock:

• Write down what went well and what didn’t
• Identify 2 specific things to improve
• Apply to 3-5 jobs

Day 14 — Rust (if needed) + Final Review + System Design Marathon

If targeting Rust roles:

Read: 08-rust-interview-prep.md — ownership, borrowing, lifetimes, async Rust (2 hr)

Free resources:

• https://doc.rust-lang.org/book/ — Ch 4 (Ownership), Ch 10 (Generics/Traits), Ch 15 (Smart Pointers)
• Jon Gjengset YouTube — search “ownership” or “async rust”

Practice explaining your RediServe project: architecture, why Axum, why Tokio, connection pooling with deadpool

If NOT targeting Rust roles:

System Design Marathon — Design 2 systems, 35 min each:

1. Design a Rate Limiter (35 min)

   • After: Watch ByteByteGo “rate limiter design” (12 min)

2. Design a Cache System (like Redis) (35 min)

   • Connect to YOUR Redis experience + RediServe project

Then: Re-solve 3 problems you struggled with this phase

Block 3: Final prep (1 hr)

• Re-read 11-interview-power-keywords.md one last time
• Practice “tell me about yourself” until it’s second nature
• Practice your 3 strongest STAR stories
• Batch apply to 5-10 jobs

AFTER DAY 14: MAINTENANCE MODE

You’re fully sharp. From here, stay sharp and learn from real interviews.

Daily Routine (2 hours)

Morning (1 hr):
  - 2 LeetCode Mediums (pick randomly from NeetCode 150 unsolved)

Evening (1 hr):
  - Apply to 2-3 jobs
  - Review 1 topic section (rotate through documents)
  - Practice 1 behavioral answer

After Each Real Interview

Within 1 hour of finishing:
  1. Write down every question they asked
  2. Note what went well
  3. Note what you stumbled on
  4. Look up answers to questions you weren't sure about
  5. Update your prep docs with insights
  6. Send a thank-you email

Extra Problems — When You Want More

Progress Tracker

Check off as you go:

Coding Patterns (Phase 1)

• Arrays & Hashing (Day 1-2)
• Two Pointers (Day 3)
• Sliding Window (Day 3)
• Stack (Day 4)
• Binary Search (Day 4)
• Linked List (Day 5)
• Trees — DFS + BFS (Day 5-6)
• Heap (Day 6)
• Graphs — BFS/DFS + Topo Sort (Day 7)
• Backtracking (Day 8)
• Dynamic Programming (Day 8-9)
• Intervals + Greedy (Day 9)
• High-frequency classics (Day 10)

Coding Patterns (Phase 2)

• Trie (Day 12)
• Weak pattern review (Day 11)
• Mock interview coding (Day 13)

Concept Topics

• Power Keywords (Day 1)
• Behavioral / STAR Stories (Day 1)
• Backend & API Design (Day 2)
• Databases & SQL (Day 3)
• Python Deep Dive (Day 4)
• System Design Fundamentals (Day 5-6)
• Distributed Systems (Day 7)
• AWS & Infrastructure (Day 8)
• Startup-Specific Prep (Day 12)
• Rust (Day 14, if needed)

System Design Problems Practiced

• URL Shortener (Day 9)
• Your Climate Risk Platform (Day 10)
• Notification Service (Day 11)
• Rate Limiter (Day 14)
• Cache System (Day 14)

Mock Interviews

• Self-mock (Day 10)
• Full mock (Day 13)

Applications Sent

• Day 1-3: 10-15 apps
• Day 4-7: 15-20 apps
• Day 8-10: 10-15 apps
• Day 11-14: 15-20 apps
• Total by Day 14: 50-70 applications

If an interview gets scheduled before Day 14 — that’s a GOOD thing. Jump to the Pre-Interview Checklist in guide-emergency-job-search-plan, prep for that specific company, and go do it. You’re more ready than you think.